


Postscript on the Archetypal Hero

by cartographicalspine



Series: The Meek [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Friend Fiction, Gen, Heroes & Heroines, Red Lyrium
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-10 17:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12917133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartographicalspine/pseuds/cartographicalspine
Summary: Hawke offers Inquisitor Trevelyan a glimpse of what is left after the story has ended. Also, no one likes friend fiction.





	Postscript on the Archetypal Hero

**Author's Note:**

> Meet Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall...and currently host to a parasitic infection of red lyrium courtesy of Knight-Commander Meredith upon her death. Has horrific visions of past and future trauma, constant debilitating headaches, and a fatalistic, emotionally damaged outlook on what is left of his life. Definitely the kind of man you want to call up for the Inquisition, yes.

“Where did he put it?”

Inquisitor Trevelyan rooted through the papers scattered across Varric’s desk briskly, as though she routinely went through her companions’ belongings for things that should have been in her hands by now. Knowing the woman’s disposition after a few hours, Hawke was certain that she did.

He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, listening to the rustling grow increasingly impatient as the seconds ticked on. “Perhaps backing off of them would get you more out of your people. Just a thought.”

She had striking blue eyes, he thought, especially when they were glaring daggers. The Herald’s were cooler, like the color of the sea before a storm. Almost green, but no less burning hot with emotion. He wondered what they’d looked like when he was Tranquil and immediately regretted it.  _No light behind glass portholes, a dead sea._

The Inquisitor was speaking again. “If they gave me more, then I wouldn’t have to be on them so often. That report was in my hands last week, and now it’s ‘research.’ Hm, what’s this?”

He recognized the print, the deliberate hand, and the setup on the page. Red ink marked corrections and additions like map trails, or like veins. “Ah, careful. That might be a draft.”

Her eyes lit up with curiosity, another trait she shared with her cousin, though she was far more reserved in expression. “I believe I see some familiar names.”

 _Oh, Varric...never change, you rascal._  “I should warn you, there’s not a lot to like about Varric’s writing.”

“Cassandra would beg to differ,” she shot back, scanning the page with her quick, pretty eyes. “And I thought  _Tale of the Champion_  painted you in a decent light for an apostate mage who helped another apostate slaughter countless innocents within seconds.”

He wondered how he must have looked to her, in her mind, when she read that part. Did she imagine a triumphant, burning revolutionary or a howling, ruthless madman, or something more human? He knew what the Herald saw when he watched him with those weary, haunted eyes. No, the boy hadn’t hesitated at all in telling him what he thought.

Regardless, she was watching him closely for a reaction, and he briefly considered playing the wounded party. But she was too clever for cheap tricks. “I imagine that was a concession for a former friend. Honestly? He didn’t print a single word I would have wanted.”

“Truly?” She raised a brow and seemed to consider it too much. Her gaze returned to the papers in her hands. “From the way he tells it, you’re a friend like no other.”

Now  _there_  was a sentiment he hadn’t expected from Varric. But he always did survive by protecting what he felt was his, even when it was something he hadn’t wanted. “Don’t expect a straight word out of him, Inquisitor. Varric’s true stories are always beneath the surface.”

“I know.”

Hawke couldn’t help a smile then, because she was proving to be an excellent reader already and he was genuinely glad she had caught on. At least someone else should know...should...

And the pressure behind his eyes throbbed red. He rubbed his temples and bit back a hiss, letting go of the memories because he needed peace as much as justice, even in fragments as this. There was a time when he held them both, one in each hand, and now he had neither, and the only one who could really tell that story refused to say it.

He breathed in deeply, knowing she was watching him again. “Then you won’t take offense at the fact that he’s written you as a doting, matronly figure? Complete with an apron and a prim little hairbun?”

_“What?”_

She dug through another pile of sheets as he cleared himself a seat on the edge of the desk, tilting his head back to ease the tension in his eyes enough that he wouldn’t look entirely like Meredith when he opened them again. How did she live seeing so much red all the time? How did she  _breathe?_

“I told him to desist with this...this…’friend fiction’ of his! It’s libel, it’s  _demeaning._ He wrote me as a ditzy mammy and you as a knight in shining white armor! A prince!”

Now he really did feel wounded, wounded and delighted at once, but it loosed a laugh from his chest that he hadn’t known he was still capable of. Several in the hall turned to stare, and the Inquisitor half-browed at him from over the pages, and he felt like the Hawke from the stories. And...the feeling vanished when he caught a glimpse of his old friend entering the hall from a side door, caught at the threshold at the sound of Hawke's voice. 

He hadn’t laughed in front of Varric in years.

(That look on Varric's face might never leave his mind’s eye again.)

“Inquisitor, you may have been caught in the act. I’d suggest a drop and run over a diplomatic approach, or we may end up testing the limits of his gracious stance on us both.”

She hauled him through another door, abandoning the draft and her report to Varric’s desk, and they cut through a half-painted rotunda, two more sets of battlements, and the stables before she seemed comfortable enough to stop. Breathing heavily in the dimly lit foyer just past the kitchen, they stared at each other for a long time, like they still weren’t certain what had just happened.

He gestured at the room they were in and crooked a brow at her.

“You wanted to run,” she said by way of explanation, and it was terrifying to hear the words from her mouth. “I...guess I couldn’t blame you. Varric...well, I’ve read the book. It’s idealized, yes, but you haven’t really acted so differently. Unless you’re hiding a raging temper under there?”

“Not even with red lyrium,” he scoffed, pacing lazily around the pillars, imagining scenes from the book as he did. Always grander than life, that Hawke. Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised him that there was nothing left over for the real thing. “Less jokes though, wouldn’t you agree? And the cautious, cunning apostate who could smooth  _anything_  over? Well, here’s me.”

She nodded and rubbed the back of her neck, looking away as though suddenly the hall was too small, too enclosed for this. “Here’s you.”

“You’ll be fine,” he said, because he saw that as clear as red daybreak, just as he could see how her boy would die within years, alone and burning brighter than the sun, as he knew he would, sooner than even that. “He’ll treat you well, in the end, the way he would have wanted for you.”

Then, because it wouldn’t do to end things on such a somber note, he gave her his arm and offered to accompany her back to the War Room, as even Varric wouldn’t say anything too damaging before the Inner Circle. At least, not the things that Hawke desperately wanted to hear.

Varric’s desk was empty when they passed through again, and he thought it was rather typical of this tale. Like he was in a haze of Tranquility, Hawke joined the council for the preparations for Adamant Fortress with answers that almost seemed scripted, and he imagined Varric putting the pen to paper one last time.


End file.
